Hello everyone and welcome back to the Hostel Road Trip Podcast.
The podcast that literally takes its show on the road.
Listen in as James Black and Bobby Dyer, owners of International Travelers House Hostels,
travel around the country to learn about these great locations and incredible people
that come together to provide a unique and exciting experience for travelers from all over the world.
Welcome back to the Hostel Road Trip Podcast.
We are still trucking through the southeast on season three.
Happy to be here with Joe Hinman, founder and creator of the Modal,
which is a new hostel in the second ever hostel in South Carolina, correct?
Correct, yep.
Thanks for being with us, Joe.
You're welcome.
And we appreciate you working with our time constraints as we are traipsing through the southeast.
And our next stop is Hostel in the Forest later this evening.
We just finished a great recording with Joe Gill in Asheville, North Carolina.
And talked about a few of his locations.
But we're excited to talk with you here as you have another unique situation
that can be relative to a lot of the industry listeners of taking a former dentist office
and fully rehabbing it, gutting it out, and transitioning it into not only a hostel,
but a cool place for the local community to come enjoy themselves as well as some amazing outdoor space
that you're going to be able to use for events and other type of music gatherings and things like that.
So definitely an exciting time for you as I know you've been working on this for many years.
Yeah.
And also an exciting time for Greenville as they've got something cool coming whether they know it or not.
Right.
So we like to always start off a bit and talk about your personal journey and how you got exposed to hostels
and what made you crazy enough to want to try this and passionate enough to keep going through all the trials and tribulations.
So tell us a bit about your hostel exposure and how you got into it.
Yeah, that's a good question.
I tell people you have to be just a little bit insane to want to do this.
And for me, honestly, it goes back into a little bit of college career.
I was originally a studio art major in college and I realized I didn't want to be a studio artist.
So I decided to pivot and went into the business realm.
But I kept art as a minor because that was more of that passion.
That was more of what I needed for myself to feel like I had a little bit of value and freedom in my hobby.
Yeah.
And so in my career as a marketing professional and a designer, I ended up working for an agency and traveling across the U.S.
back in 2014 when I moved out of Greenville.
I'm a native from this town. I've been here.
I'm really proud of this town.
But I also realized, you know, in order to personally improve, I needed to get outside of the city I grew up in and go explore a little bit.
So I moved to Denver, actually, and fine city.
When I moved out to Denver, I took a job where I traveled about nine months.
I was in Denver, but I was kind of a satellite, if you will, in that sense that I was traveling all across the U.S.
selling products with the NASCAR circuit.
So, yeah, it was it was definitely a niche situation where I was slinging sunglasses at NASCAR races.
So that was a really cool experience.
Aside from just the job itself, I got to spend a lot of my off time exploring towns and cities and went to about 40 states in nine months.
So did you know that? Yeah, I was.
And I realized in that experience how much Greenville had to offer.
But I also realized how much interest I had in the exploration of starting my own business.
And so when I ended that job, I had an opportunity in Greenville to come back.
And so I took a corporate job.
And that's when I transitioned back into this town.
I realized that there was a major missing component and that was a hostile.
Let me go back, though, when I was in Denver, I loved the city.
I loved what Denver had to offer.
But I would go away on the weekends to go explore other places and I came across a hostile.
And that was actually my first time experiencing a hostile.
I knew what they were in Europe.
I had heard about them.
I had friends who had stayed in them, but I had never done the European hostile.
And so the only experience I had was an American hostile.
What was the name of that one?
It was the Bibby, actually.
The Bibby, OK.
And I just I actually had recommended the property.
I hadn't even stayed there.
I just found it online.
I recommended it to my brother and his wife and they took an anniversary trip there, which you would never think, hey, let's go.
You know, you may not.
Yeah.
So but they came back and they were like, Joe, this is one of the coolest places we've ever been to.
You've got to go check it out.
And so I ended up going there a couple of times that summer and just really fell in love with the experience of hostiling as an American and and blown away that I could stay in Breckenridge of all places for such a low cost.
You know, and and yet still meet people from all over the country and the world and all age groups and all that stuff.
So when I came back to Greenville, I had no intention of starting a hostile.
I just knew that I wanted to start a business at some point in my career.
And I just happened to have a friend called me up and said, you know, hey, I know you're moving back to Greenville.
I'd be interested in getting commercial real estate.
And I thought, that's not really my thing, but let's talk.
And it became my thing because after we start talking, I realize, you know, OK, maybe I don't want to be a landlord, but maybe if we could find a property and we can make it something I'm really passionate about, then I'd be into it.
Yeah.
And we were sitting in the kitchen and I just said, oh, my God, Greenville needs a hostile.
And that was the first thought.
And that was the seed, if you will.
This bigger idea.
And and he immediately was like, yeah, yeah, oh, my God.
Yeah, that's absolutely.
So from that conversation on, we started reaching out to other locals who were kind of in the small business realm and the creative realm.
Those who I would think would stay at a hostile, those who might have stayed in hostels elsewhere and just kind of get a feel.
You know, am I crazy?
Is this really something that we need or is this just something I want?
You know, and so that's how it started.
And then, you know, here we are four years later and I'm sitting in a property that we've been working at making fit that need for almost a year and a half now.
So that's really cool.
And I think that's a unique but really inspiring instance that most people would find their experience abroad.
They would say, like, oh, we should bring this back to where we're from.
And I always think that is a really cool experience when someone finds it and then tries to take it back to their hometown.
Yeah. To try to, you know, expose that experience that they've found maybe to the locals and the younger people and expand their horizons, but also expand the community's horizons by giving this portal or this base for people that are artistic, creative, international travelers that digital nomads.
Right.
And now they have got a place to stay.
And I've often found in my experience that the community a lot of times might be resistant upfront, but they end up benefiting greatly from the actual hostile be coming in.
So it's cool that you actually got that exposure in America.
So it shows that we're continuing to progress this industry and showing that it can be done.
But as we saw at the American Hostel Conference, we were both at last week or earlier this week.
It's so cool at that conference to see people that are trying to open up.
It's not necessarily people that are industry savants or investors that are trying to get in because they see the margins and the benefit of it, which is there and can be inspiring in a way.
I really like to watch how a lot of these larger hostile conferences are. And that's why I really like Vicki's conference, because you have this wide range of people that are going there and seeking to get some tutelage, further inspiration, information on how to get it done and yourself and another person.
I've seen one from Cream City in Milwaukee. Another good example, someone who's had the battle of going through years of ups and downs and close calls and disappointments and landmines. You don't expect.
But share a bit about your experience of the challenges you met of trying to bring the first ever hostile to Greenville and only the second hostile in South Carolina.
So what was that process like?
There was a lot of research initially.
It was a little disconcerting when you start the process. Obviously, everyone goes to Google right off the bat.
But when you Google and there's nothing coming back and you're like, is there a reason no one's opening?
Should I really should this? Should I be cautious?
But it wasn't actually until I went to the conference last year that I felt this overwhelming piece of I'm not crazy.
I came back and I told David and my partner, I said, I've never been somewhere where I met people who are doing exactly what I'm doing. And I felt finally validated.
You know, the process has been, yes, four years. I mean, within within the initial conversation in the kitchen, it was two weeks by the time we were looking at properties.
We were we were I was aggressive. I wanted I wanted to open something in a year. I mean, I was like, I can do this.
And especially since we were looking at properties that quickly, I thought, oh, my God, this can happen so fast.
And and with that, I also kind of started wrangling excitement within the community because I just I wanted it to happen.
So I was kind of speaking it into existence in that sense. And I might have, I guess, in hindsight, I would say I might have stirred the pot a little too early.
Yeah. Yeah. But not necessarily in a regretful way.
I think when we started looking at properties, we looked at mainly three main sites before we ended up here and to look.
And for those of you who are about to start a hostile, you know, the biggest thing I would say initially is don't get your emotions involved.
Yes, because I was especially as a creative.
Yeah, you see something and you paint the walls before the foundation is built.
You know, you just you can imagine it and I would go home and I whip out SketchUp and I would do these elaborate drawings of what it could be.
You know, and I don't think that was a bad thing.
But at the same time, it was we had to go through feasibility studies with the city.
Then you had to sit down and talk with engineering about both structural and everything from utilities.
And the first property we're looking at was pretty much in the heart of the city. And once you add bathrooms to the quantities we wanted to add, that that impacts infrastructure.
And those are the kinds of things me as a marketer and a creative never had considered like the number of toilets and showers you have impacts the water.
You know, like so for me, it was a major learning curve and we spent probably six to nine months on that one property. And then it was there's no way we can spend that kind of money to flip it.
And then it was OK, let's pivot and look at some other properties. And so we did that two or three times.
And then we realized, you know, I also am not sitting on a nest egg. I'm not, you know, someone who's got deep, deep pockets.
And so for myself and I think that's the norm, I would say, for most of the owners I've met is a lot of its bootstrap, a lot of its organic and a lot of people open when they they they open on a shoestring budget with the intent of growing it to be something more.
And I totally respect that. And for us, we wanted to be creative in the different ways to approach funding, which is the biggest like that would be my biggest hurdle by far.
You know, you can you can convince somebody to need something. But if you don't have the money to make it happen, it doesn't matter.
And so for us, it was when we were looking at those properties, making sure that we kept in mind our own feasibility from a financial standpoint.
And we had a property under contract that again, I walked in and I was like, oh, my word, this is it.
You know, I was I literally yeah, I would have bet money on it.
And again, we did feasibility. You know, we had a partner, an investor at the time who was really, really supportive and extremely gracious and acted more as a mentor through that almost a year of due diligence on that property and spent a significant amount of money just testing the soil.
Another thing I never would have thought, you know, things that you just you just start throwing money at. And so it it could have definitely derailed me.
It could have made me extremely depressed and felt like, you know, why am I doing? And trust me, I had this.
But it was it was not only my partners in the in the process that were helping, you know, keep me my my mental state healthy, but it was also really the community.
You know, I did reach out to a lot of people in the community. We did what's called an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign.
And we did that in order to make the community feel like they could be part of what we're doing.
And one thing we talked about a lot at the conference is the stigma of hostile that term.
Like, you know, people don't even know what it is.
And and we had the same situations. We'd walk into a meeting and we'd say that term and the person would look at us either with a scowl or a question mark and be like neither faces.
Yeah, exactly. Especially when you're looking for permission.
And so I ended up realizing our biggest benefit is the community.
And David and I are both very passionate about keeping the community involved as much as possible.
Not just the creative community, but the community at large.
We want to make sure the the neighborhoods love what we're doing.
We want to make sure that the other natives who have been here 50, 60, 100 years and their families are still living in the same homes.
We want them to know, like, even though what we're doing may be progressive or different, that we are doing it for them and with them.
And and that was our way of saying that.
Sure, we raised some money out of it and it helped with some of those upfront costs that I never had thought about.
Yeah, but it was also a mechanism to really help educate what the hostile means and what that can mean to the community.
Yeah. And I was just thinking back to earlier today with our episode with Joe Gale over in Asheville.
And he talked about in his early trials and tribulations, you know, those nights when he would just literally laying there crying, you know, like, yeah, you're just in moments of desperation at some points.
And I think it's so sad to think of all of the people and good people, creative people, people that would have made great hostels that gave up.
You know, you think about all of the over the years either because of the stigma or just the overall frustration or the opposition of the community or the people in the permit or zoning or city ordinance department.
You know, for listeners out there, you're not alone in that way.
Right. And, you know, sometimes when you feel that element of am I crazy? Is this possible?
That's a big reason why we're doing this podcast is to give a kind of a resource for people to listen to almost for support and comfort in that way.
Because we went through the same thing out in San Diego where we went through several buildings.
And I remember the same thing you're talking about. You walk in and you feel like the sunlight just.
You know, you're floating through like this is an ethereal experience.
Yeah, you know, you're already designed and then you're right. You're measuring shit.
And then some guy comes up to you and says, like, oh, and by the way, this window is too small.
Yeah. And because of that, you're like, well, when do to like, and you can't touch it because it's historical or it doesn't have a da da da da.
Or you need 12 parking spaces and there's only two. Yeah.
So I think it's important that you do keep on trucking and then a lot of ways in our experience of being on the road and doing this podcast is that so many times people then just like you said earlier today in retrospect, you're like, oh, thank Lord, that building didn't work out.
Right. Yeah, for sure. Thank goodness these didn't work out because I ended up in the best one I could have.
You know, so I think that's a very valuable for listeners to hear. But now we find ourselves finally in the building. And we're sitting in here and you know, it's so exciting to see the bones of the house exposed.
The idea and the flow is put together. You've got tape on the floor to line out the reception. You can see where all the outlets are for the bunks and how you've gone through the place to create this not only cool hostile experience, but also a cool community center.
If you will, for so many other things to happen. But now maybe talk a bit about you're in the building now. Now you've got your baby. You've got your girl and now a whole nother war battle comes to play.
And you had mentioned one, for example, where because of some, you know, obscure rule in your town post 2014 now you need sprinklers.
Twenty grand you didn't expect that you would have had. You know, what are some of the other, you know, struggles and, you know, curveballs that you've experienced within this place that has, you know, maybe delayed or made it more difficult than you thought.
Well, first off kudos for you guys doing the podcast because if I had been able to listen to this two years ago, I would have been like, Oh, now I know what I'm getting into.
Maybe I wouldn't have done it though. I'd probably be like, ah, they convinced me. Don't do it. Just stay in that cubicle and suffer.
But yeah, no, it's so when when that house or that other property, it wasn't a house, it was a fully commercial property when that fell through and my investor at that time looked at me and said, Joe, this isn't the right property for you.
I mean, I was devastated. I mean, I was if if I had let my emotions come over me, I would have cried. I would have just lost it.
But I walked out of there a little bit more just like fired up. I'm going to prove. Yeah. Yeah. And then two days later, our contract was up and I had no buildings.
I was like, oh, no, he proved me wrong. But it was my partner at the time. And now my my landlord partner called me.
I called him and kind of was begging him and asking him to purchase this building. And he he too, and I like very wise and just patient way was like, you know what?
That's probably not the right place for you. But I have another one. And he said, why don't you come check this out?
I'll I'll bring sandwiches and we'll sit down and talk. And I was like, man, you're such a good, like,
a convince of like why I should go with this. He's like, I'm not going to try to convince you. That's not my intent.
I just want to I just want to talk. And it's like I was so low,
I guess, emotionally at that point, too, that I just was like, you know what?
This is all I've got. This is the only chance I have left. And so walking into a building that's an existing dentist office and you're you're walking the halls and you see X ray signs and you see like weird stuff that you have no idea what it does.
And you're you're trying in your mind to erase those things, especially when you're kind of still a little bit but heard about the last.
Yeah, like go around that you're like, I don't even I'm not even happy that I'm in this place just to let all that go again, that emotional trauma.
And and so and of course, I was eager just to latch on to something else.
I think again that once he cast the vision for what could be in this place and we talked and we had that that just breather session,
I saw it. I saw it and I saw it more completely than I had.
And I realize I really did see the other negatives of the former property as a limitation.
And I at that point, like you said, you realize you're happy. Yes. That you dodged that bullet. Yeah.
And I think a lot of it had to do with shame, too.
Like you feel you've told you've told your whole community you were going to do this thing.
And you even took money like you even you convinced people. And and I I felt guilty for that.
Sure. But then responsible. Exactly.
And so there was a lot of people asking after that change.
They're like, so, you know, how's the building coming out? Oh, well, we didn't get that one.
We're moving to another one. And so once we were into this space,
I think first off, it was what can we do the least to make it work?
Again, cut costs. Better as you go. Yeah.
Let's let's just you know, this one, it's already got 10 rooms.
It's already got like a great floor plan. It's already got a lot of bathrooms.
Because it's a dentist office. You got sinks in every bed or every thing for.
Yeah, it's already kind of segmented in the ways you want it.
And so and and you asked, you know, what were some of those hurdles for us?
It was because there was no category within the city ordinances about a hostel.
So you have to find where you fit. Right.
And so for us, it was bed and breakfast was the most palatable.
And and yet we still had to figure out some variances to that code to fit what we were doing,
because even bed and breakfast ordinance doesn't look at your business plan.
This is one of my biggest frustrations with city code is they don't look at your business plan
to see how your business functions. They look at your categorization. Yes.
And even though we're nontraditional.
And so, for instance, with parking, bed and breakfast is only allowed at one parking space per guest room
and then two for the live in manager. And I'm like, well, wait a second.
I'm going to have potentially 30 guests in this property. Five parking spaces is not going to do it.
You know, and it was that kind of conversation where we had to go back and forth and be like, you know.
Yes, we put it on paper as this, but can we can we explain that it really is going to function this way?
And the functional part is what I had to constantly fight for. Yes.
So that it really maintained the vision. And for us, weird things like a state.
Bed and breakfast can have 10 bedrooms in South Carolina, but within our city, we can only have five.
So I thought, oh, perfect property. We've already got 10 rooms.
No, no major like architectural drawings or changing of walls and studying up and on.
No. So we had to pretty much once we realized that we were limited by that, you know, again, this is where a really good partner comes in play.
Someone who's willing to do it right and do it right the first time.
And he was like, you know, let's let's sit down with architect. Let's discuss this. And so we started redrawing.
I mean, I probably drew the floor plans 15 times just to make it work, but also to make it the best.
You know, you really the nice thing, too, is we've got the flexibility that we're not held to a lease right now that our investors have been really patient and given us that flexibility.
And that's another reason why if you've got the time, take it. Don't rush to open just to be open.
The numbers obviously matter in the sense that you want to start making money to pay for this. But if you open premature, you get bad reviews, it's all hospitality situation.
If you want to make sure that you open with your best foot forward.
And so we gave ourselves the time to do a good floor plan that we were happy with.
And I mean, I would think I was done and then I'd walk it. I would come in here and I would literally walk for hours just walking it, thinking, what's going to go here?
And even even down to the furniture. And then I would be like, no, I want this here.
And then I'd run back to David and be like, wait, can we can we change it? We haven't done the work.
And he would he was flexible, you know. And so and even once contractors came in and I saw something going in that like wiring, like you're talking about power outlets.
If you want something to be specific, you have to be there. And that's another challenge is I was working a full time eight to five corporate America job.
While I'm having contractors in my property making changes and I'm like, you know, and I'd come back and I I felt like I was, again, a little bit anal.
But I was just like, I want it done right. And I need it done specific way. Yeah, yeah, understandable.
So I going back to the property itself, I think the biggest hang ups in this is I from what I've heard across the country at the conference and from other owners is terminology.
Terminology, making sure that you educate the city on what a hostile really is and go into those meetings with examples.
Yes, go in with examples that you want to emulate, not just any example, because some hostels you could put in front of the city and they'd go, we don't want that.
Some hostels, you know, they'd be like, that's amazing. And you want to end to be quite fair.
Actually, the city, when I presented initially, they were all about it. Loved it. And I thought we got them. This is great.
But then it doesn't trickle down into the apartments. It doesn't trickle down into code enforcement.
It doesn't trickle down into the person you're seeing every day. Yeah.
And so it's really the most important key is communication and documentation, making sure that you keep track of this conversation.
You have emails to validate. And it's not because you're trying to be antagonistic.
It's because you're trying to be a good business person. Exactly.
Because I think it's often a misconception. A lot of times your city council member who's a politician wants to tell you yes, wants to appear pro-business, wants to make everyone happy.
Correct. But then when you get down to the departmental person that has to put their name on the paper, they don't want to sign it.
Exactly. And they'll push you off to another department. And no one really wants to be held responsible if it goes wrong. Right.
So that is a great piece of advice of connecting the dots for them to show them like, oh, no, well, the city councilor said this or the chief zoning guy said this.
So now I've got this email from him or this letter from him or I've even had it.
No, I've got this voicemail and I'm going to play it for you right now.
You know, make them listen to it or show them a text. And I think that's a great way to keep your paper trail.
Yeah, because even when you and I've had this experience personally, we had properties that we looked at that didn't work out, but we had gotten some type of concession from the city that they agreed to.
Yeah. And we were able to pull that back out like, well, on this property that we didn't actually open, but you did say this was OK.
And we're still in the same city here. And you'll kind of corner them in their own day.
And they're not expecting that persistence a lot of times from a hostile person because they're thinking you're some hippie or some, you know, artist, you know, that's going to go through.
And David, David is very adamant about the due diligence on our end to prove to them that we're willing to do the work.
We're willing to show you that we did the research. We, you know, we went and found what we could.
But in some instances, either the code was so ambiguous or it was just confusing.
And you needed someone on their end to interpret for you.
Yeah. And so we would come even with our architect or engineer and say what we felt like it stated and what we believe we were able to do.
And they would appreciate when you've gone through and you've done the homework.
You've spent the time to inspect that. And so that's the way to build, I guess, some rapport with that.
Yeah, I agree completely. Well, so we've gotten to the point of now that we are building out this experience, we've got it coming possibly sometime by this summer.
Looking like by next fall, for sure. So we're going to take a quick break here for our sponsorship.
But when we dive back in, we're going to hear more about the modal experience from the guest perspective and also what Greenville has to offer for travelers coming through of all sorts.
So stay tuned for more hot topics from South Carolina's second hostel.
We hope you're enjoying this episode of the Hostel Road Trip podcast.
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And now we bring you back to your regularly scheduled program.
Welcome back to the Hostel Road Trip Season 3 already. I can't believe it. It's just been flying by.
We are in Greenville, South Carolina in our second to last episode of Season 3 before Mark, Needham, and I go jump into a hot sweat pit down at the Hostel in the Forest and let out about a week's worth of drinking and raging on the road.
I feel like Slash and Axl from Guns N' Roses.
And we are back with Joe Hinman, founder, creator, spiritual advisor of Modal.
And we want to talk more about now a little less industry shop talk and a little bit more about tourism, backpackers, digital nomads, and all the great travelers that are going to be able to come through here and the experience they're going to have.
Now, right off the bat, what I thought was cool when you were bringing us in is that we had a little bit of a compartmentalization within the building so that you'd have private guest space in their own space to know they're safe and secure to enjoy themselves.
But you also have an idea to have a space for the community to come in and enjoy the place. Tell us a bit more about that.
Yeah, so like I was saying earlier, a community is a huge part of what we want. And with Modal and what Modal exists to do, it's always been an intent to make Modal kind of the artistic creative hub of the city, so that if you're a guest coming from out of town, and you want immediate entrance into that creative culture,
which you're most comfortable in as a creative, we would be that place for you. And so the intent is to provide space both for the locals in the lobby area and the reception area where they can have a beer on tap from a local brewery, they can have coffee, you know, we've got some really great coffee roasters in our area, and give a space for that mingling to happen.
A lot of hostels are antagonistic, or not necessarily antagonistic, but closed off to the local community because of...
Yeah, because I feel like, again, if you really want to educate, you got to bring them in. And it's not even if it's not into the building itself, there's ways to bring food trucks around the property, have outdoor venue opportunities and...
You talked about barbershop maybe.
Yeah, you know, work with other local creative business owners to give them a space that they can, you know, build more of a name for themselves, almost like an incubator space where they can afford to come cut here, but they may not be able to have their own storefront yet.
Give some of these new creatives a platform to really spread their wings.
It's almost the perfect marriage of experiences, if you ask me, because so many travelers will come in and Alaska Hotel concierge. Where do the locals go? Little do you know, unless you've worked in the hotel business or the restaurant business, those concierges are paid off by the restaurant people to send them to the tourist places.
And so you're never really going to get a straight answer. Also, another common thing is that those hotel people don't want to tell you where the local spaces are because they don't want to see you afterwards. So you have that divide going on.
So it's so cool when you have these models of a hostel popping up that are community centered and a guest walks in that's a digital nomad or international traveler, and they say, where do the locals drink? 10 feet away buddy, they're in here already.
So from the local perspective, what more exciting things that have a little bit of flair, a little bit of variety, a little bit of spice in life and have some different people coming into town.
Just besides the people that you drink with every night or hang out with all the time. So then that draws in those local people because you have this world coming to you aspect things going on.
I love the marriage of the two in those ideas. But another thing that we've seen traveling through this is southern area, southeastern states is the music.
Yeah, so cool how much of a profound influence the music has on the community. And you were talking about housing bands and things like that. Tell us a bit more about that.
So this again comes to finding a good partner who's got different passions, but then play well to what you're doing too. And all along I was focused on more of the digital nomad, the creative, the designer photographer who's coming through my town and to do work.
But, you know, David is focused on another demographic and that's the musician and he loves his festivals. He loves local bands. He loves it because one of his best friends has a band.
So he's always looking for ways to support that. And most recently he's opened his own music venue, which plays really well to what we're doing here is we want to make sure that we'll probably be one of the only venues that can say, hey, look, we'll host you in our space to perform.
But we also host you overnight. So we've got it all covered. You don't have to worry about finding lodging. You don't have to worry about the stress of being on the road.
We really want bands to feel like we've got that turnkey experience. It's going to cause them to want to come back and play with us.
But also for a band to stay in the hostel, it gives them a chance to meet other people, other bands, other creatives that who knows what could come out of that too.
And if you're a guest to that's a really cool thing. If like you saw this band player, then you realize that next morning at breakfast, like, holy shit. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's a really cool mesh that you have going on right there.
And then when you put into play that you're surrounded by so many cities of influence that are known as meccas of music like Asheville and Nashville.
So if you put yourself on the map as a place that they can stop into when they're on the road, I'm sure you're going to get more and more acts that are interested in staying and popping in and doing the exchange.
And that turns my attention to the next really cool part and unique part about this property. All your outdoor space. Yeah. How many acres? Yeah. Yeah.
Immediately there's about six. That's huge. Right. It's so much cool outdoor potential that you literally could run in a festival, have all these different events and outdoor space to it.
And do you have any plans or ideas on how you're going to like put those events into play or is that kind of still this raw form? It's definitely it's it's in the works.
That's kind of again that's David's baby is that the overall kind of development plan of creating a space within the city that that cultivates all of those components.
And he's very passionate about keeping Greenville green. Yeah. But still having other concepts, whether it's retail or commercial come to complement what's happening here.
So modal is really kind of that first major player in this specific area. Nice. And yeah, for the for the short term, while that's basically all that cleared land just sit in there.
It's going to be ripe for any kind of festival. Have you thought about any type of outdoor accommodations like teepees, yurts? We are open to it.
I think I mentioned at a conference to one thing I want to make sure we protect is the fear factor. We start popping up tents and like village by the city may feel more commune.
Yeah. Yeah. So I want to kind of prove our reputation before we start adding those accommodation types that smart.
But we're totally open to but exciting for you that as you establish and grow, there's room to grow. Right. Because that's another thing that a lot of operators were running to is that, oh, my God, I nailed it.
This works. It's great. And I am turning people away all the time. And that's often a lot of times when you'll see a second place open up and take some of that wind that your momentum should be yours.
But I definitely can see as I was walking around as you guys are setting up all the gear, you know, I could see the food trucks. I can see the music venue. I can see the community coming in. I could see the people staying here.
You know, you could have yoga retreats out there. You could have so many beautiful things that just raw potential out there to land that if I were you, I'd be super excited.
And if I were Greenville and potential backpackers coming to Greenville, I'd be excited to see that.
Now, as far as, you know, the backpackers options within this place, what type of room setups do we have and what are the price ranges going to be?
So we that was one thing I really wanted to ensure was a variety of options.
As you saw, we have a four bedroom dorm. We have a six bedroom dorm. We've got a 12 bedroom dorm.
And we will have designated male only and female only. But then our largest dorm will be coed. So you've got an option for everybody based on preference when it comes to gender categorization.
And then you've got one private room once we open the potential of adding a second. So some some people specifically probably the older demographic aren't as accustomed to the idea of hostile.
And so they may not want that shared room. So I was very adamant. I wanted to make sure we always had a private room option.
And if it's booked, it's booked. But at least we had it. Yes. And then you can always encourage them to try a dorm room or encourage them to experience what real hostiling is about.
Exactly. And so I we can sleep about 28 guests and that I feel like is kind of that sweet. We talked about sweet spot. I did not want to be a big hostile.
I did. I never wanted to be over 50. I knew that that's a different line. But I just I wanted to really protect the intimacy that you get with a smaller property and the boutique of that experience.
Obviously, it helps with cost. You know, I'm paying for less sure everything. But at the same time, I feel like I'm still being able to achieve what I set out to do.
And I personally, as the owner and operator, want to be able to name everyone who stays in my property. You know, I don't want to feel like 30 people checked in.
I never got to say hi or meet any of them. And I'm at breakfast in the morning and I don't know who's sitting across from me.
I want to be able to feel like I have the ability to have that personal touch point when they check in. And so keeping it under 30 really allows for that.
It's an amazing difference when you cross that line. And as someone has experienced it, as we started with an 18 bed hostel and then now our biggest one is 130.
And I almost have like a panic attack when I'm there because sometimes I don't even know all the staff anymore. That's horrifying.
I used to hire everyone. And I used to make pancakes for all the guests. And I knew all of them by name.
And it can have such a drastic effect on your reviews, your occupancy, your morale, your experience, your feng shui.
Everything goes in lessons and diminishes as you climb that number up.
And I am just such an advocate of the 50 bed and less hostel model as a person that's experienced it for a while.
So I think you hit the nail on the head as far as number there. Now, what about price range? What are we going to be looking at for bunks?
So with our property, I don't love the term postal. Yeah.
I definitely have put a lot more energy and time as a creative into the experience.
And I think people are willing to pay for an experience. They are.
And so not for the sake of gaining revenue, but for the sake of sustainability, our property price point will probably be for the private.
Like for the private room, that's going to fluctuate based on market. To be honest, I still want it to be more affordable options.
So I'll always swing to the lower end of what the market's willing to pay for the dorm rooms.
It's probably going to be in the 40 to 50 a bed per night, which is not outrageous anymore because you did say the word postal and you have a lot of these larger hotel brands and venture capitalists.
And they just have so much money that they can pump into it.
And now you find it very common to see bunk prices in cities 60, 70, 80 dollars a night, which as an industry person who's been in it for a while, that was unheard of five, 10 years ago.
And it was more like 25, 30, 35 was the range.
But I will agree with you that as more millennials and more Americans are getting into it, an American will pay extra for a little bit more of that comfort, a little more of that security, a little more of that cleanliness.
And you can actually, I think, break through a ceiling when you do that, because if you were to just run a bare bone operation that's very slim line,
that backpacker is kind of disappearing a bit where it was I want as little as possible so I can pay you as little as possible.
That model in America doesn't work very well if you want Americans.
And I think a lot of us that are getting into this industry are getting into it because we want to expose it to the American demographic and we want them in here.
So if we're going to do that, we've got to play to our demographic and that's going to make it nice or hostile.
And I think it is worth it to put the extra money in.
And I think that the guest demographic will happily pay for it.
So I think you're on the right line there.
And that's the biggest component is the quality that if you're going to if you're willing to put it into upfront building a space that's clean and safe.
Those are my two big things because, again, that perception issue.
We're all collectively as an industry trying to heal what's been broken in the sense of perception. And to do that, I feel like you have to really put your best foot forward and invest in some things.
We specifically as a brand are really passionate about the technology component, making sure guests feel like they have easy access to what they need, but that their belongings are safe and secure and that they feel safe and secure.
And so we've got gone above and beyond what may be required or may what may be what works or even what's necessarily expected in some cases from those who have hostile across the globe by putting in like key card entry and using tools like being able to scan your phone rather than your key card to really target the demographic of the millennials used to those tools used to that functionality expects it in a sense.
And and then really encouraging the safety component so that the community understands that, you know, we're not a brothel. We're not some frat house. We're not. We're not willy nilly.
We're just doing, you know, allowing whoever and whomever to come in in the sense of like that that local struggle with the halfway house kind of feel. And and I felt like targeting a very specific audience, especially that digital nomad who may be a career based individual who has the income, but is still willing to look for an experience.
It's got costs by only paying 50 bucks a night instead of going to a hotel where they're paying 100 and and giving them something that, quite frankly, they can't get anywhere else.
You know, they they can't have that experience. And so David hounds me on details, details, details. And I agree 100 percent that it is all in the details. And if you can demonstrate that you have that guest's experience as the forefront of your mind when they're checking in, they're not going to blink.
They're paying 40 to 50 bucks a night. They're happy to pay for it if they can see it reinvested into the product. Exactly. It's when you feel like you're getting scammed. Right. I'm paying too much for this. Right. And as long as you put it into your product, you stand behind your product and which I know you will.
You know, then that guest will happily pay for it. Now, in closing, what does modal mean? So modal has several meanings, actually, from a definition standpoint, it comes from the realm of transportation. So modal or modality is moving one thing from one place to another.
So think of like a railroad to a barge to an airliner. Yes, you're taking shipments and you're putting them on different modes of transportation. Okay. And so it's this idea that things are constantly in motion. Yes. And so our symbol or icon is kind of a wheel or a hub.
But it plays the idea that I want to be the hub of the creative culture. So it's got kind of a duality. You're the modal of Greenville. Exactly.
And and we're always in motion, you know, things may look different when you come the second time I may have new furniture, I may, you know, sell the artwork that's on my walls, I may have things that are different. So that's exactly.
And that's why our slogans visit often because we want you to come back. We want you to reexperience that the room accommodations will always be the quality that you expect. But the experience itself will be different.
That's cool. I like that. That's what modal means. But it also plays into modal as a type of fiber used in linens, which is our industry hospitality. Yeah. It also is a term used in music. So it plays to all the different facets of our business.
That's a great brand. It was a really, really good encapsulation of a very big vision. Cool. Oh, no, that's fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time.
And we greatly appreciate it. And we're inspired to see that you didn't give up and that you are bringing in South Carolina's second ever hostel. And for you listeners out there, keep Greenville on your map and keep the modal on your radar, because this place is going to be a badass experience.
And you can't miss it. So stay tuned for more episodes. We're heading to the hostel in the forest next. And from there, we truck on into the Southwest season four. Until next time.